1. Technical Field
The invention relates to nanotechnology. In particular, the invention relates to nanowire-based nanoelectromechanical (NEM) devices.
2. Description of Related Art
A consistent trend in semiconductor technology since its inception is toward smaller and smaller device dimensions and higher and higher device densities. As a result, an area of semiconductor technology that recently has seen explosive growth and generated considerable interest is nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is concerned with the fabrication and application of so-called nano-scale structures, structures having at least one linear dimension between 1 nm and 200 nm. These nano-scale structures are often 5 to 100 times smaller than conventional semiconductor structures.
A growing area of nanotechnology is nanoelectronics. Nanoelectronics includes nano-scale electronic devices, such as nano-scale field effect transistors (FETs), p-n diodes, light emitting diodes (LEDs) and sensors, to name a few. With respect to electromechanical devices, more interest seems to be focused on state-of-the-art microelectromechanical (MEM) devices than electromechanical devices that incorporate nano-scale structures.